PLANO, Texas — More options for children's healthcare will be available in Collin County in the coming years.
Children's Health this week broke ground on a new addition to its Children's Medical Center Plano campus that will expand the number of available beds from 72 to 212.
The expansion, which includes a seven-floor, 300,000-square-foot medical tower, is expected to be finished by early 2024.
The expanded specialty programs will include cardiology, oncology, gastroenterology, orthopedics and neurology, according to a news release from Children's Health.
"All of those things we’re doing to really deliver on our mission to make life better for children, we want to do that here, on the Plano campus, for the parents and families that need us here," Children's Health Executive Vice President of the Northern Market Vanessa Walls said. "Our expansion will grow our intensive care beds by double, and that will make us better prepared for what we might not know will happen in the future, but we’ll be ready."
The hospital's Plano location, at 7601 Preston Road near the Sam Rayburn and Dallas North tollways, opened in 2008. The population surrounding the hospital has only grown each year, and Children's Health has seen its average number of patient families grow year over year.
"This expansion will offer the families of Plano, and its surrounding communities, the opportunity to receive world-class, critical and tertiary care closer to home," the hospital's release said.
Walls said other creature comforts will be available to families, too, like more food options. Each room will also be private, with windows looking out over the 155-acre facility.
"No one wants to be in the hospital, but if you’re going to be here, we want to make sure you’re the center of everything we do," she said.
Children's Medical Center in Dallas is Children's Health's main campus, where 490 beds are available, including critical units such as neonatal intensive care (NICU) and pediatric intensive care (PICU).
Here are more renderings of the Plano campus expansion, provided by Children's Health:
